[asterisk-biz] consultant questions : glad to pay for email reply

[Miles Keaton]

I've got some Asterisk-consultant questions for any experts here.

I was going to try to find a consultant first then ask them these
questions, but decided to just post it to the list, and I'll be glad
to PayPal $50 each to the first few people who give through replies to
the 4 questions below.


SITUATION:

- We already have a 100% Asterisk setup in our USA office, for the
past year, working well.

- We're going to be setting up international offices, with people
working from home in their own country.

- They need to be available by a regular incoming phone number in
their country, but the number has to be ours.   (So, in case the
person flakes, we can route calls to a different person.)

- Call-roundabout (seeking?) setup, where one central number can ring
the next-available-agent (many agents, each working from home).

- Work-at-home agents should be able to make outgoing international
calls through our system.

- All calls (in and out) should be recorded and logged.


QUESTIONS:

- Each work-at-home person should only need a headset + softphone
software on their PC, right?   (Is the software audio quality as good
as separate hardware SIP phones now, if run on a modern-speed PC?
Recommendation for best?)

- To have land-line (incoming) phone numbers in a country, should we
have an Asterisk server in that country?  A rack-mount server in a
telco/colo center, that receives the calls in on a Digium card then
SIP-routes them out to the work-at-home SIP phones?   (I'm assuming it
shouldn't be all-one-central server, since calls from Australia to
Australia would actually be crossing the ocean twice, reducing call
quality.)

- Can Asterisk report-back IAX-softphone availability, without needing
to pass a call?   So our website can say how many agents are available
(in which countries) to take their call now?

- Is there a better way you'd recommend setting up phones for the
"SITUATION" described, above?   Since there is no legacy phone number
or contract, it could be 100% VoIP.


Thanks!